The UK Air Accident Investigations Branch has released a report about a ”serious incident” that occurred with a TUI Boeing 737 in July 2020. The cause? Confusion over ”Miss” vs. ”Ms.”
Continue reading: Oops: Title “Miss” Causes TUI 737 To Take Off Overweight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This is just sloppy. When there is a higher than normal M/F/C split (or zone split or indeed any other loadsheet component), it should be flagged by load control to begin with and then verified by simple visual inspection by the crew. This is not rocket science and could have been checked in 30 seconds without it becoming an issue.
Also, using standard weights means that the TOW calculated is always wrong. That in itself is not a problem as the margins are built in to protect against that becoming a major issue. However, 1+ ton variance is a fairly significant one and probably needed to be investigated to identify the root cause.
With IoT sensors being so cheap nowadays, airports should just upgrade and include invisible weight scales in the gate areas/boarding gates. This way it's easily possible to get accurate details.
One UK newspaper is reporting that updating the software was outsourced to a different country where, culturally, "Miss" means a child -- which is not necessarily the case in the UK.
A fascinating by-product of globalisation?
Why not use the same abreviations like on Boarding passes, MR/MRS/CHD etc? Or am I missing something?
@The Nice Paul - that is why there is the IATA PSC manual which specifies the standards to be used regardless of culture or language or anything else. MR/MRS/MS/ADT for adults, MSTR/MISS/CHD for children.
Why would anybody still use Miss? Just look at their web site and they have Mr, Miss, Ms, Mrs, Dr, Prof and Rev. Seems like if you are a Lord you won't fly with TUI.
Child goes up to age 17 (I know plenty of 14 year old's heavier then me) and the title for a child is 'Master' or 'Miss'.
Seems like they just use the title for the weight calculation and because Miss exists for adults and children their sums won't add up :-).
Looking at BA they have a similar setup but at least there you can be a Dame, Lady, Baron, Lord etc. Seems like they are not flying with TUI 🙂
It's really a non-incident. The "average" passenger weight and "average" bag weight they use isn't really based in reality. Your bag has a different weight if its checked at the gate vs checked at the plane, and miraculously weighs nothing if you carry it on board. Same with people. I've looked at a plane full of people that look like they weigh NO WHERE close to the "average" weight they're assigned.
I disagree with the suggestion that average passenger and bag weights are not based on reality. When I have had to weight passengers and bags while creating the load sheet for smaller aircraft, the average of the actual weights come pretty close to the standard weights we use.
@German Expat
I think in U.K. passports if you are a “Lord” then that appears as the first word of the family name. Though that potentially makes you Mr X Lord Y. It’s all very confusing.
Which is why Sean M’s comment is helpful.
All passengers should be weighed at check-in/boarding, together with their carry-on bags. That would enable airlines to be sure about what payload each aircraft has on take-off. A logical next step would be for 'lightweight' (ie less than average weight) passengers to be issued with a credit voucher to be used to obtain a discount on the cost of a future flight. Heavyweight passengers could (controversially, I predict) be surcharged.